Suspicious Minds
[Kathryn Jean Lopez  02/21 12:54 PM]

Inquiring minds want to know, Rod: Do you shop at Wal-Mart? Another e-mail:

I just discovered “Crunchy Cons” and am anxious to read it. And I mean anxious! Some points in the manifesto scare me. “We…who stand outside the mainstream…can see things…more clearly.” Really? What if you’ve just moved to the left and poked yourself in the eye?

“Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power…” I disagree. I don’t think it’s focused on those things at all.

“Culture is more important than politics and economics.” How can you separate them?

“Small, Local, Old and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New and Abstract.” Why did you capitalize them? Are they spirit beings? Anyway, you couldn’t be more arbitrary. Group one may or may not be better than group two; it depends on the circumstances. I could give you a lot of cases where the latter is better.

“Beauty is more important than efficiency.” That’s vague, but again, arbitrary. Pencil factories are ugly as hell, but very efficient. Without them, we would have to pay much higher prices for beautiful handmade ones.

“…media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.” You should have capitalized the last three words because they represent true ideals. How do you know our culture is media-driven? That’s an old chestnut of the left. What’s it doing here? Have you considered that cause and effect are reversed? Maybe those who are culturally, and/or spiritually, dead prefer pop culture. Research hasn’t shown much impact on culture from media; media tends to reflect, not cause, culture. Anyway, what would you do about it? Do you want to repeal the first amendment?

I like #9 on the family.

Do you shop at Wal-Mart? I think your answer is very important. I’ve run into a few “conservatives” who despise Wal-Mart, and all of them are wealthy. Of course you can despise Wal-Mart if you’re wealthy. Wal-Mart stores are ugly and over crowded because a lot of poor people shop there, especially Hispanic immigrants. But conservatives like me (long time member of First Baptist, Broken Arrow, OK), need Wal-Mart because of the value it offers. It allows us to save money on essentials so that we have more to give to our church. I would love to rebuild an old house in an established neighborhood, but I can’t afford it; I have two kids in college. I suspect that only wealthy cons can become Crunchy.

If you want to encourage people to adopt your lifestyle, fine. But if you want to use the power of the government, i.e., the gun, to force people to be like you, that’s scary, and not very Christian or conservative.

Sincerely,
Roger D. McKinney
Broken Arrow, OK